This handmade, sterling silver pendant is made with a natural stone cabochon. This rare orbicular patterned Guadalupe Poppy Jasper comes from the Guadalupe Reservoir in Morgan Hill, CA. This is a very rare stone and popular with collectors. The yellow background color is is a nice sunny mustard color with bright red poppies with white and yellow centers.

I made this wire wrapped pendant setting with sterling silver. As with all of my wire wrapped silver jewelry, the wire is not plated, filled or coated, but solid sterling silver. This big, long stone needed only to be framed to help it stand out.

Jasper is an opaque and fine grained variety of impure Chalcedony (type of quartz). It has a hardness of 6.5-7 on the Moh's hardness scale. It is found in almost all colors. The interesting colors and patterns are caused by impurities. They can be up to 20% impure. Sometimes, those impurities will cause patterns that resemble pictures or landscapes and, as such, is then called a picture jasper. Other times they cause a variety of color and or interesting patterns or bands.